UPDATE: Arthur Caplan was kind enough to respond to Anne's email requesting clarifications. Here it isFirst, as you know as a polio survivor i am strongly pro vaccine. i watched too many children die around me as a kid to doubt the importance of vaccines.

As diagnosis of autism moves ahead of the time whenvaccines are given, and even becomes likely to be offered as a prenatal test, the reason for concern about vaccines not only fades but is misdirected toward where research and ethical debate ought to go.

I know many people in the autism community, talk to them regularly and see that no one position dominates their thinking about cause, treatments or vaccine safety. But, I know that many are deeply concerned that finding a genetic cause will lead to a campaign to eliminate autistic and Asperger's children which i think is a key emerging issue and have written about already.

In this article from MSNBC, Arthur Caplan, director of the Center for Bioethics at the University of Pennsylvania, is outraged at the actions sanctioned by U.S. government officials in Guatemala and at the Tuskegee Institute in AL.

Caplan is right, we should be alarmed over such inhumane experimentation.

I struck by the words "Nonetheless, officials knew it was wrong."

As a member of the autism community and a writer for the daily online blog, Age of Autism, I recall Caplan telling readers in the Philadelphia Inquirer in 2007 that the government approved and mandated vaccine program couldn't be related to the explosion in autism now affecting one percent of U.S. children.

He cited numerous studies all clearing the mercury-based vaccine preservative thimerosal from any link to the current autism epidemic.

He slammed author David Kirby and activist attorney Robert Kennedy Jr for daring to question the practice of injecting the second deadliest element on Earth into pregnant women and small children.

He called the belief that a deadly neurotoxin was causing children to become autistic "an urban legend."

According to Caplan, the science is in on vaccines and autism. He wrote, "Science and medicine have not bought the thimerosal/mercury-autism link. For years the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the American Academy of Pediatrics, the Children's Hospital of Philadelphia's Vaccine Education Center, the National Academy of Sciences, the Food and Drug Administration, and countless other prestigious organizations and scientists have said the data do not support mercury in vaccines as the cause of autism."

Caplan was satisfied that the officials who are in charge of the vaccine program have nothing to hide when all their studies show no connection between their dramatically increased vaccination schedule and the explosion in autism.

Caplan allowed CDC officials to have oversight over themselves when it comes to vaccine safety. He was seemingly unconcerned that hundreds of people at the CDC have conflict waivers because of direct financial ties to the vaccine makers.

For thousands of parents who believe that an unchecked, unsafe vaccine schedule is behind the devastating plague of autism, the experiments at Tuskegee and in Guatemala come as no surprise.

For years, officials have refused to do the one study that would stop the controversy over vaccines and autism. Despite repeated requests from the autism community, no government official has ever called for a study to compare the autism rate in vaccinated and unvaccinated children. If one percent of unvaccinated children were autistic, then the proof would be there for everyone to see. We seriously need to ask why no one wants to see such a study done.

Caplan isn't concerned about the revolving door between the vaccine industry and the CDC. A stunning example is the fact that the recent past director of the CDC, Julie Gerberding, a long time denier that vaccines cause autism, is now head of the vaccine division at Merck Pharma.

Caplan claimed in 2007 that mercury was no longer used in vaccines. This is not true. It's in horrendous levels in almost all of the flu vaccines available.

This vaccine is recommended for pregnant women at all stages of pregnancy by CDC officials, even though the manufacturers state in their package insert that it's never been tested on pregnant women and they don't advise it for them. HERE

Caplan's harsh words over the syphilis experiments should extend to the government's actions covering up the evidence linking vaccines to autism. His words, "Nonetheless, officials knew it was wrong," also apply to the issue of using mercury in vaccines. The mercury-based vaccine preservative thimerosal has a history that should call any safety claims into question.

Thimerorsal was invented and tested Eli Lilly Pharmaceutical Company in 1930. The one study done on thimerosal was done by Eli Lilly on 22 adult patients suffering from meningitis. There was no chance for follow-up to observe long-term effects, as all of the patients died. Even if follow-up had been possible, damage to the developing brains of very young children would have remained an unknown. Eli Lilly said it was safe and the medical community just accepted it. After the creation of the FDA, its use was simply continued. This unconscionable oversight failure should call any safety claim into question. In other words, thimerosal was never tested or approved by the FDA for use in our children's vaccines, but health officials are convinced it's done no harm.

In his book, Evidence of Harm, journalist David Kirby pointed out that "...many researchers had sent the company [Eli Lilly] documents dating back to the 1930's, each raising a red flag about thimerosal." (EOH 207-209). Mr. Kirby chronologically lists over 70 years of scientific research on the damaging and deadly effects of thimerosal that was willfully ignored by Eli Lilly and the CDC.Our CDC and FDA should be utterly embarrassed to make safety claims based on such a pathetic history of oversight.

In addition, back in 1991, Dr. Maurice Hilleman, one of the top vaccinologists in the world, wrote a memo to the president of Merck Pharmaceutical Co. warning about the high mercury levels children were receiving in their vaccines. That warning was ignored and mercury exposure was only increased with additional vaccines. Myron Levin wrote about this for the LA Times.

If Caplan had read Evidence of Harm, he'd have learned about the closed meeting at a place called Simpsonwood Retreat Center in Norcross GA in 2000. There, 52 representatives from the pharmaceutical industry, along with people from the CDC, and the FDA gathered for two days to discuss the findings that implicated the increase in mercury exposure in vaccines to the explosion in the number of children with autism. (See Flu insert here)and (See Simpsonwood FOIA here)

"Nonetheless, officials knew it was wrong" resounds in the autism issue. The people with everything at stake in this debate are allowed to deny, deny, deny. Mercury is safe when injected into children, autism hasn't really increased--doctors simply are recognizing it better, and when officials finally admitted that autism is now at an epidemic levels, they're ready to blame any environmental toxin except the known toxins in vaccines.

The recent book, The Age of Autism, by Dan Olmsted and Mark Blaxill reveals that ever since the 16th Century, doctors have proclaimed the medical benefits of mercury and ignored the deadly side effects. They're still doing it today.

Increasing exposure to mercury is having a dramatic impact on our lives. "Nonetheless, officials knew it was wrong" also means that there's a great incentive to cover up the damage at all costs. There is a real lesson from the Guatemala and Tuskegee experiments. Let's hope it doesn't take 60 years before officials admit what mercury exposure in vaccine has done to our children.

Thinks4Self
Yes it is.
I moved up there for a few years and it is pretty bad. Seems like there is not a family there untouched!

I heard that Michigan - go getters- leaders of the car industry - leaders in the industrial world - modern - looking for the next new thing to make money and bring about a better life for everyone.

----and in that population were smart people that thought they could manufacture their own vaccines for their state. It was a mess what they did - I don't think they are still in business up there??? Right???

There are literally hundreds of environmental toxins in the vaccine schedules. Thimerosal is one of the environmental toxins in the vaccine schedules. Thimerosal binds nearly stoichiometrically to sulfhydryl groups. The active sites of a number of enzymes have sulfhydryl groups at their active sites. QED: thimerosal in the vaccine schedules is a biotoxin. This has been known for decades. I first learned it in graduate school.

“DNA hypermethylation regulates the expression of members of the Mu-class glutathione S-transferases and glutathione peroxidases in Barrett’s adenocarcinoma” by DF Peng, et al in Gut 2009;58:5-15 doi:10.1136/gut.2007.146290

“If it looks like a duck, quacks like a duck and smells like a duck, it’s probably David Gorski, M.D., Ph.D”.

"Appeals to prestige" is a completely vacuous and ironic tactic, a trope if you will, especially since their "whoring" for pharma is regularly added to their ill-gotten academic sinecure. No "good" deed goes unrewarded by pharma.

It's a very successful, tried and proven, self-perpetuating scheme. Pharma's ghost-written medical "research" publications are a case in point. Pharma's medical practice "guidelines" are a case in point. The implementation of pharma's global vaccine policy is another case in point.

Generally speaking, in RICO parlance, there are often conspiracies involving both horizontal and vertical relatedness of predicate acts. Here's an example:

"From this schematic diagram, it is clear that just as in Bingham v. Zolt, 66 F.3d 553, 562 (2d Cir. 1995), there were a variety of schemes which were related only in their ultimate goal which resulted in “new injuries.” The underlying predicate acts of each scheme, however, were related and continuous."

The term "quack" is much too kind for these pharma shills. PharmaWhores is much more appropriate.

David Gorski who calls himself "Orac" and has undisclosed ties to the pharmaceutical industry butchered what I said:

"There's Jake Crosby parroting his new favorite phrase of "tobacco science," apparently having learned it from Dr. Jay Gordon and having zero clue exactly what he is talking about."

And yet he addressed none of the points made by SafeMinds in its critique of the recent CDC study, the one study refuting the thimerosal-autism link that the CDC claims is "rigorous."

"He even uses the tired old quack tropes about Semmelweis and Galileo"

This guy really should have taken a history class back in college. Historical parallels to current events are key to our understanding of the danger that history can repeat itself, especially when appeals to prestige are garnered as the sole foundation of an argument.

"He even uses the tired old quack tropes about Semmelweis and Galileo, apparently unaware that the Galileo gambit is every bit as lame as he views appeals to prestige. Here's a hint, Jake: To wear the mantle of Galileo it is not enough to be persecuted for your scientific views. You also have to be right."

Except that I wasn't using the "Galileo gambit" as a reason for why I'm right, but Caplan very much seems to be appealing to prestige to claim he is.

Yes, I too had a second cousin that still has to walk on his tip toes on one leg from polio.

Even Kentucky's senator and now Senate minority leader had polio as a kid.

His mother was hard on him he says. He had to push himself but he did and was later a very good baseball player.

I know polio was a bad thing, but so is autism.

I lost in getting my son SSI today.

I was hoping for a little help next year toward getting him to his new school - oh well.

They called in some big gun psych - not an MD from way down in Atlantia, GA. They sent my son's record to him and he then was on a telephone conference.

Let me see:
He said yes, my son did have an organic brain injury, tourettes, OCD, anxiety, speech problems, ADHD, epilepsy, PDD-NOS, a mood disorder - and - and - and - well there was more but I sort of lost track - but nope, they think he can hold down a job, so no SSI.

No apology forth coming from the vaccine court, or the NIH, or the CDC - nope - but the psych did say that my son's problem did all come from a drug reaction.

Side stepped the word vaccine!!!!

No help coming from the federal government either.

I said a prayer today.

It was rather evil.

I prayed that would God please, please, please not smit as many babies that belong to people that had to voice, no real power - but instead give this curse to the ones in power.

Shortsie: It would be metabolized differently in the average person. However many of you claim that your children have mitochondrial disorders or are particularly sensitive to mercury. Although an injection would have a more dramatic effect, children with mitochondrial disorders would be unable to properly metabolize it. The chemical would likely remain in their systems. Are you claiming that there were no mitochondrial disorders in the 19th century?

The narrator states that 80 percent of them were mentally retarded, with the majority of them being unable to speak. This was one year before the Asperger's diagnosis appeared. I was verbally precocious and read at age 3. I often talked to the adults about my favorite subjects such as history. People like myself would have never been diagnosed back then due to our ability to verbally communicate. I was diagnosed as an adolescent. In my experience, most high functioning autistics are diagnosed later than the elementary school years. In my elementary school years, they thought something was wrong but never said it was autism. They instead mistook it for ADHD. I was never diagnosed with it but the school authority figures believed I had it. Most autistic people were misdiagnosed with other conditions prior to diagnosis labels such as Asperger's. I had difficulties as a child but was nowhere near the children in the video.

We should not let fear get the better of us. Clearly, Dr Horowitz has not. Unfortunately, the time frame in which judicial action and legislative reforms take place is VERY LENGTHY, in comparison to the rate at which we are being injured by pharma. The pandemic flu hysteria of 2010, is a case in point. In a way, these time frames can be likened to a race. If pharma can incapacitate us first, by means of mandated inoculations, they win!

I personally would like to see an honest, independent investigation into what paralytic polio actually was, and whether we have any data that truly, when all the changing of diagnostic criteria are factored in, indicates that polio vaccination has had any positive effect on polio incidence, and we need an honest representation of how many polio cases were caused or may have been caused by vaccine programs as well.

Also, when I read about the multiple doses (some children have received more than nine doses) of polio vaccine administered in India, without making headway in eradication, I think we are probably wasting much effort and resources that could be more effectively put into first cleaning up sanitation practices, water sources, improving nutrition, and therefore improving the overall health of children in such areas.

Then when I read about how some cases of paralysis were linked to previous vaccinations, i.e. injury only in the limb that had received a prior vaccine, or how a scientist insisted at the time that he could trigger the same? nerve damage in animals with DDT exposure, but his research was ignored or buried, I think we need to honestly identify whether other environmental factors (pesticides?, over-activated immune systems?) are involved, or are in actuality causal, when "polio" affects sustained damage. It sounds to me like we don’t even know what the “polio epidemic” was.

After the many negative outcomes of our run-away-vaccination-programs of which autism may only be a small (although devastating and far more common that paralytic polio) part, I feel that we can no longer afford not to get "the history," or "the science," right in the first place.

I find it interesting that Caplan's defense of vaccines stems in part because he had polio as a child.

There's a real lesson to be learned when we compare the autism epidemic to polio in the 1950s. Polio affected one in 3,000 Americans across the population. Autism strikes one percent OF CHILDREN.

While some victims of polio died, most recovered and went on lead productive lives.

I had an aunt and a cousin who had polio at that time. Both married, held jobs and had families.

The same won't be true of those disabled with autism. They will be dependent on taxpayers for life.

I taught history for eight years and studied a lot on the subject. I can't think of another situation like this from the past. There have always been epidemics, but the victims either died or recovered.

We simply can't continue to ignore what's happening to hundreds of thousands of our children right before our eyes.

Ah polio vaccine. From back when vaccines were truly altruistic and meant to save lives. Dr. Salk refused to patent his vaccine - "Could you patent the sun" I believe he said. He was about helping mankind. Now vaccines are the fastest growing profit center for pharma and about making money by covering the largest population possible. Mr. Caplan, the days of vaccines being all about saving lives are LONG GONE - wake up.

Here’s a little more info on POLIO, for those who are still willing to listen, before we leave the topic. The MSM and orthodox medicine only present one side of a story, that which best suits their pharma sponsors. Sometimes the conventional wisdom is not always right. Do we still have a right to at least be skeptical? Or should we just accept it on faith?

April 26, 2010 — Investigative Journalist, Sherri Kane interviews Dr. Leonard Horowitz on the Big Island of Hawaii in Kona at the Earth Day Festival about his new extremely controversial documentary film "PharmaWhores", that names all the big players and their roles in the genocidal agenda taking place, including the Polio fraud fright that is occurring right now with a goal to get billions of children vaccinated for profited population reduction.

To Aspie, If you ,were to eat a can of tuna everyday and then you developed mercury poisoning symptoms (Be ready to diagnose that yourself- doctors are often unable to do so),and then you learned that tuna contains high levels of mercury, how would you feel?. Remember, before you answer, that by now you have been ill for a couple of years, you have spent a small fortune on medical tests;you have lost your job and all your friends and relatives think that you are just a nut case because mercury may cause symptoms of mental illness. You might now, perhaps , maybe think that it would have been nice if someone had warned you about this??? But then you discover that people have attempted to make the FDA do this, to no avail.
As for autism, show me the research , starting in about 2005 (children born in that year) which shows that autism is rising. You need to start in 2005 because the mercury was not convincingly out of the vaccines until then. And in this study I hope they omit the babies who receive flu vaccines, because two high mercury flu vaccines at age 6 months is enough to make some kids autistic. I hope your study,, shows that the autism is severe and not extremely mild, because it seems that many if not most of the cases being diagnosed today are very mild cases, whereas in the past, the cases were severe . So, just find us that study and get it posted at Age of Autism. Its what we are all waiting for .

All of the commenters are acting as if there were almost no incidents of mercury exposure prior to government mandated vaccination. Before you claim mercury was only used to treat adults, I've read 19th century medical literature and happen to know otherwise. Within this literature, I've read accounts of mercury being prescribed to infants, especially in the case of congenital syphilis. We must also understand that high levels of mercury are found within fish. According to some of the posters here, we should be barred from eating most types of fish due to their levels of mercury. If mercury is the primary cause of autism spectrum disorders, why is it that the number of cases are on the rise (I don't believe autism is on the rise as much as better diagnosis, I'm simply trying to find the logic in your beliefs)?

Everytime I discuss vaccines the response is "what about polio"? I have seen the horrible damage done by polio and the damage done by the "vaccines gone wild program". The government is trying to sweep all of this under the rug. Caplan is nothing more than a mouthpiece for the medical industry. Our government has conducted several horrible experiments on humans and I was taught only the Nazi's did this type of thing.

Caplan will never see our point of view.
No use talking to him, Anne.
Because of his injury - his purple heart and watching his fellow soldiers (children dying and sickened with polio) there is no room left in his brain or his heart for the victims of autism.

He will claim he knows, but I have long understood you have to be right in the fight, the house, next to our little wounded soldiers to truly understand this part of the war on pathogens.You have to actually witness a stroke, a scream right after a vaccine or bunch of vaccines like Jon Poling did to finally get it!

We have won little except maybe a feeling of security that our child will not die of polio, or whooping cough. Still the fear of a parent of autism - today - is just as intense and scary.

But he does not see it that way, nor will he ever. Because vaccines was the answer to his problem whereas vaccines is the cause of ours.

I went to the genetics site that Caplan provided in his response for the third reason and found this:

"...heat was the key weapon the doctors and nurses deployed against the polio virus that had left the muscles in my neck and legs paralyzed.

But, on this winter day in 1957 something was about to change. The nurse put me in the tub. She turned away. I jumped out and for a reason that only a 7 year old would real understand, took off out of the bathroom and ran down the hall. I might have run right out the door of the hospital, were it not for the fact that I was completely naked, dripping wet and it was snowing outside.

I remember very well when my parents first suspected I had polio. I was in their bedroom, probably on a Sunday morning, goofing around with them and my sister when my mother asked me if I could lift my legs any higher. I could not. A few days later, a spinal tap and a bunch of physical exams later I was in a room at the MGH on the polio ward where I would stay for six months until, for a reason no one understood, the polio was beaten back by my body’s immune system.

In the hospital there were plenty of injustices. I remember being angry that my parents could not stay over or even visit for very long. And I remember being puzzled why it was that the doctors would not tell us the truth about the kids who died. Every kid on the floor knew that the kids in the iron lungs were likely to die. But, that fact was never acknowledged even when someone died during the night. At the age of seven I was sure that this was not the right way to deal with seriously ill patients"

I wonder if to this day he really believes he had polio. That sounds like what my son had between the ages of 4 and 7 years (temporary paralysis of neck and legs and one arm). He is now 9 years old and recovered as well on his own (no medical attention). His doctors never suspected polio as he was fully vaccinated so he never received treatment for this part of his symptoms.

Because of my son and the injuries he DOES have, I would be curious what Caplan's MRI looks like.

"Unelected, unregulated and unaccountable ACIP medical bureaucrats have blatant financial conflicts of interest and are committing scientific fraud by recommending administration of vaccines that have not been tested for safety in the age groups or populations targeted."
-- Michael Belkin, circa 2000.

"To promote the health and quality of life by preventing and controlling disease, injury and disability." "CDC pledges to to be a diligent steward of the funds entrusted to it." "CDC pledges to base all public health decisions on the highest quality scientific data, openly and objectively derived." CDC Core values: Accountability -- we ensure that our services are based on sound science and meet real public needs ..."

“The CDC has violated its own mission statement and current leadership needs to be replaced. Most people don't realize that the CDC is a quasi-Military organization that takes great pride in dressing up in uniforms and strutting around one day a week.”

“the reality is that these vaccine mandates are being rammed down the US public health system by the CDC and ACIP and are being imposed at the local level like the US is ruled by some Vaccine Gestapo.”

I noticed that Arthur Kaplan is a trustee for the Keystone Center, which has been awarded numerous times to conduct, facilitate, the public engagement on vaccine issues. The Keystone process, fails to ask the right questions, which means, the answers they use to inform policy are largely irrelevant. The Keystone Center's list of corporate and individual donors, taints the process and outcomes of those public engagements. I noticed that the CDC's Ben Schwartz is a donnor and before Offitt, he had been the public face of dismissing vaccine adverse events.

The bottom line is that Kaplan fits perfectly, in all the roles he plays in perpetuating the illusion of vaccine ethics, and vaccine safety. He will never, never allow his own illusion to be questioned, no matter how outrageously corrupt and unethical the behavior of those he listens to in the vaccine industry.

His influential position perpetuates and feeds the hungry lie. The lie must be protected at all costs[thats where Kaplan fits in], or the game is over,.... really, really over.

Isn't that exemplary! The director of the Center for Bioethics at the University of Pennsylvania has a conscience. He is horrified over "past" human experiments by pharma.

What about ONGOING horrific human experiments with biologicals by pharma? How dare Caplan, et al, demand vaccine mandates and refuse exemptions. It's unmitigated gall. The tipping point has arrived. Their denial of our God-given natural rights is unconscionable. Their utter disregard for the Precautionary Principle in preventive health is unconscionable.

The vaccine industrialists would have us place our unfailing trust in them. They would have us believe that we should all sleep soundly at night, knowing that they are looking out for OUR best interests. At the same time, they are teaching us morality and ethics. No “good” deeds go unrewarded by pharma.

Ginger, are you sure that the vaccines your son received did not contain thimerosal? I was assured that the vaccines they were about to give my daughter in 2004 were thimerosal-free, that ALL children's vaccines were thimerosal-free. When I saw that they were using multi-use vials, I made the nurse show me the package insert, which clearly listed thimerosal as preservative.

The pharm companies continued to sell and distribute "old stores" for as long as the shelf life was good, and the pediatricians continued to purchase and use them.

Don't be fooled by anyone who says that thimerosal was "removed" by 2001.

It was never "removed." Many new vaccines were produced without it, but even now, they continue to produce vaccines preserved with thimerosal.

I sent Dr. Caplan
( CAPLAN@MAIL.MED.UPENN.EDU ) an email this morning asking him to consider that the cover-up of the syphilis experiments is in many ways like the cover-up of the evidence over vaccines and autism. I sent him links to the
news stories on Hannah Poling as proof that the autism-vaccine link is real.

vaccines are given, and even becomes likely to be offered as a prenatal test, the reason for concern about vaccines not only fades but is misdirected toward where research and ethical debate ought to go.

I know many people in the autism community, talk to them regularly and see that no one position dominates their thinking about cause, treatments or vaccine safety. But, I know that many are deeply concerned that finding a genetic cause will lead to a campaign to eliminate autistic and Asperger's children which i think is a key emerging issue and have written about already.

"countless...prestigious organizations and scientists have said the data do not support mercury in vaccines as the cause of autism."

What a lame statement. Their tobacco science is such garbage that no one who actually reads it is convinced by it so they have to play the prestige card. Yeah, and countless prestigious organizations and people who called themselves "scientists" also once said that autism was caused by "refrigerator mothers." And guess what? That view was disproved by the founder of AoA's sponsor - Autism Research Institute. The original blamer of the parents - Bruno Bettelheim - has been exposed as a fraud, even though he's been endorsed as a world expert on autism by The New York Times and a host of other media outlets.

In fact, the prestige card is a worthless argument all-around, and not just for autism as history as shown. The treatment of Galileo, Semmelweis, and Scopes is enough to teach us that lesson.

Friends, with the publication of the book , Age of Autism, watch carefully for the actions of the powers that be: So far : A. Trots out a junk science study showing that mercury is safe in vaccines. B. Apologizes for what was done long ago in order to purvey the notion that they dont make that kind of mistake in todays perfect world. Im still waiting for the fish article- The one that implies that your baby will suffer if you dont eat fish during pregnancy. Any more suggestions from anyone here as to what will be next?

In 2002, 8 years ago, Dr. Paul Offit et al. wrote an article for Pediatrics called, "Addressing Parents’ Concerns: Do Multiple Vaccines Overwhelm or Weaken the Infant’s Immune System?" This was done at a time when the reality of the autism epidemic was being felt around the nation, after Dr. Wakefield was being crucified for this "Ileal-lymphoid-nodular hyperplasia, non-specific colitis, and
pervasive developmental disorder in children", http://www.generationrescue.org/pdf/wakefield2.pdf, and Bernard et al investigated mercury, specifically thimerosal in childhood vaccines, "Autism: a Novel Form of Mercury Poisoning" http://www.autism.com/fam_mercury.asp.

If you read the 2001, "Addressing Parents’ Concerns: Do Multiple Vaccines Overwhelm or Weaken the Infant’s Immune System?", it does not address the concerns about injury, death, or autism. It does not address concerns about actual research showing multiple vaccines, not antigens, being studied to show safety. The word safety is nowhere to be found in Offit's words, nor is thimerosal,but he does use many words/phrases to SUGGEST not PROVE his point:

"has the capacity"
"Current data suggest"
"theoretical capacity"

And the infamous origin of the dirty vaccine commercial line "each infant would have the theoretical capacity to respond to about 10 000 vaccines at any one time (obtained by dividing 107 B cells per mL by 103 epitopes per vaccine)."

This also is theoretical, based on lab thinking, not actual, individualized infant/child exposures:

"Of course, most vaccines contain far fewer than 100 antigens (for example, the hepatitis B, diphtheria, and tetanus vaccines each contain 1 antigen), so the estimated number of vaccines to which a child could respond is conservative. But using this estimate, we would predict that if 11 vaccines were given to infants at one time, then about 0.1% of the immune system would be "used up."

Any consideration of thimerosal, aluminum, LPS or other toxic ingredients are never addressed. It is a used car salesman tactic to point out the theoretical positive attributes while avoiding the negatives. Offit's desperate and continual sales pitches are digging him deeper. How long until we see his name in the papers, like Dr. John C. Cutler, as a horrendous participant in harming children?

...or war on terrorism. You can accomplish a lot of amoral experimentation in states of emergency. Or one can get away with unpleasant actions calling it a matter of national security. We can use fear and secrets.

I like what my Aunt said:
She "...still struggles with her three boys. "I wouldn't
trade them in for anything," she says. "But what did I do wrong? I
didn't take drugs. I just went to school." To her, her kids aren't
all the army has to answer for. "At the very least, they violated
our civil rights and called it patriotism." It's enough to give the
cold war a bad name.

This comment (80's) was when she found out through the newspapers that she and her first grade peers had been involved in a chemical warfare experiment in Minesota:

"Zinc cadmium sulfide is one of four substances the army long ago
admitted having sprayed over 239 sites to simulate covert biological
attacks. Between 1949 and 1969, when President Nixon halted
offensive germ-warfare efforts, army technicians misted the cadmium
compound over a St. Louis slum, broke light bulbs filled with
bacteria in the New York subways, fitted suitcases to spray
passengers at Washington, D.C.'s National Airport and shot
bacterial "aerosols" over the city of San Francisco. Since 1977,
when newspaper reports led congressional hearings on the spraying,
the army has claimed that the agents were harmless. Biologists
have answered that no large-scale release of bacteria should be
considered safe. Though the army was probably not knowingly spraying
toxic particles, all the simulants, experts, should have been tested
more stringently. "They didn't check the literature very carefully,"
says Matthew Meselson, professor of bio-chemistry at Harvard. "They
were sloppy.""

When are they going to apologize for experimenting on almost every vaccinated child in this country.

After my son regressed into autism following his 18 month shots, I was told it was not the shots.

So I looked for research to back that up. I found MMR/autism research, but my son didn't get MMR. I found thimerosal research, but he had not gotten thimerosal at that visit either.

He had DTaP, Polio, HIB, Hep B and Pnumo, and there is not one study that looks at any of those vaccines to see if they have anything to do with autism and there is not a SINGLE study that looks at what giving those five shots, for 7 diseases at the same time can do to a child.

The opinion that vaccines didn't cause my son's autism has no basis in scientific fact what so ever. It is just wishful thinking and CYA.

Vaccines are tested one at a time and given half a dozen at a time. No one know what this does to children.

Why isn't the autism community taking a head count of all the childrn with mercury poisoning? I just don't understand it. and... I believe it is true that vaccines don't cause autism. Autism is an incurable neurological disorder without treatment. Therefore, the majority of these childrn have been misdiagnosed.
Here's what needs to be done.
1. Sue all doctors and specialists who give an autism diagnosis or ADD, PDD, or developmental delay without prior proper medical assessments for metals, GI, immune, metabolic issues.. Any incurable neurological diagnosis is negligent when so many kids are recovering.
2. Get a head count of all the kids with mercury poisoning and demand they be treated for it. Honestly,,, I've never seen any numbers on this... Has anyone in the community taken a head count? Until they do, nothing will be done.

Does Arthur Caplan, director of the Center for Bioethics at the University of Pennsylvania .. believe in ultilitarianism? Which Webster defines as:

"the doctrine that worth or value is determined solely by utility; the doctrine that the purpose of all action should be to bring about the greatest happiness to the greatest number"

Does he believe it "ethical" that public health officials .. determined to protect the "herd" .. willingly and knowingly .. sacrifice the "few"?

After all .. the public health studies that so repulses him today .. were conducted by "utilitarian" public health officials quite willing to sacrificed the "few" .. so they could learn how better to treat many more.

If public health officials were wrong to practice "utilitarianism" while seeking a cure for syphillis .. why is it okay for public health officials to practice it today .. while seeking to "protect the herd" from communicable diseases?

A terrific article, as always, Anne. Thanks.
I'm thinking who the heck would want an apology anyway. If someone came and apologized to me tomorrow about the harm that was done to my grandchildren, it wouldn't do anything to heal the damage already done.
maurine

I have a sneaking suspicion that Kathleen Sebelius's apology to Guatamala and the engineered-seeming press "outrage" over the 60 year old atrocity is a bomb disposal operation to preempt and defuse certain revelations in Olmsted and Blaxill's The Age of Autism. Because of the way the authors present the history of syphilis and unethical experimentation in the US in relation to the vast human trial of deliberately injecting infants and pregnant women with mercury, it was only a matter of time before light was shed on other hideous human trials by other journalists and activists. And when those issues come to light, certain parties wouldn't want The Age of Autism to be cited as a chief resource.

I could be wrong, but the article in the Atlantic on Kanner case Donald T. appearing a day before The Age of Autism was published sort of gives away the strategy. It looks like various entities hope to "inoculate" the public against feeling like they're missing anything if they don't read the book, while also "inoculating" against the idea that the US doesn't own up to its own dirty laundry-- *specifically* dirty laundry having to do with medical and pharmaceutical practices.

But ever get the flu right after getting a flu shot? These entities are forgetting that inoculation doesn't work a lot of the time-- e.g., half the people contracting mumps in NY and pertussis in CA had been immunized for it.

"More recently, Reverby came across documents that showed that Dr. John C. Cutler, a physician who would later be one of the researchers involved in the Tuskegee study, was involved in a completely unethical research study much earlier in Guatemala.

Cutler, who went to his grave defending the Tuskegee experiment, directly inoculated unknowing prisoners in Guatemala with syphilis and also encouraged them to have sex with diseased prostitutes for his research from 1946-48.

It’s easy to think he was a rogue doctor or a mad scientist. But his work was sponsored by lauded organizations such as the United States Public Health Service, the National Institutes of Health with collaboration of the Pan American Health Sanitary Bureau (now the Pan American Health Organization), and the Guatemalan government. "

A case can be made that Paul Offit is now filling John Cutler's role...

I heard a report on NPR yesterday regarding the inexcusable Guatamala experimentation. The woman being interviewed (whose name I don't recall) said something to the effect that "this is the sort of thing that happens when you define your undertaking as a "war" --human life is devalued." I thought, --yes! that is the problem with the CDC and mainstream medicine. They have declared "war on communicable diseases" and in their flag-waving attacks, they overlook all those who are being injured and killed.

(Much else that the woman said (stressing the importance of public involvement and oversight) was also very relevant to the whole situation with vaccines, vaccine research, and vaccine mandates.)

Seriously, given the advances in microbiology and ecology over the past 30 years, and our new and current understanding that our bodies are made up of MORE microbial cells than human cells, and that many microbes are not only harmless to us, but necessary for our existence, the old "war on germs" model of health is outdated and WRONG. I think it is time to CLOSE DOWN the militarized CDC and end all their "wars."

I suspect we (and they) already know what the results of a vaccinated versus never vaccinated study would be--which is exactly why they refuse to do it. I have gradually come to think that most, and probably all, vaccines are outdated weapons from this misguided war.

It is time to start over with a completely new approach to public health that emphasizes maintaining and restoring a healthy, unpolluted environment, which seeks ways to reduce environmental and body exposures and burdens of toxins, and also seeks to improve population access to, and consumption of, good, nutritious (organic, non-gmo) food.

"Caplan allowed CDC officials to have oversight over themselves when it comes to vaccine safety. He was seemingly unconcerned that hundreds of people at the CDC have conflict waivers because of direct financial ties to the vaccine makers."

"Conflict waivers" - what a novel concept! Such waivers not only permitted, but encouraged "direct financial ties to the vaccine makers". The public is supposed to accept this? How dumb do they think we are? CDC needs to be dismantled and reinvented, from scratch. We have the same problem at FDA, e.g. a revolving door policy with pharma. Has anyone heard from Poul Thorsen lately?

There should be an out and out campaign for an independent study into whether autism is prevalent to the same degree in vaccinated and unvaccinated groups. I have been calling for this since I visited the November 2002 Vaccine Conference at Arlington, Virginia. Since then the Geiers have found an adverse co-relation in VAERS data, Dan Olmsted has found an absence of autism in the Amish and in Homefirst patients, some 330,000 individuals who appear to be free from autism perhaps because they do not vaccinate to the same extent as the general population. There can be only one reason why the authorities do not conduct this research, it is because they know the answer and it is a devastating answer.